​William Michael (Mick) Winter died peacefully of leukemia on Saturday January 14 at the Kaiser hospital in Vallejo, with his beloved family at his bedside. He was 75.

An innovator, idealist, writer, satirist, futurist and community activist, Mick lived in the Napa Valley for almost 40 years and was an integral part of the local community. His wife, Kathryn Jacobs Winter, is a former vice mayor of Yountville and a former Napa County supervisor.

Mick’s interests and intellectual passions were widespread. He addressed sweeping global topics like climate change and the United States foreign policy in his books on Peak Oil and Cuba. But he also focused on the importance of grassroots organizing for improved public services, local neighborhood associations and building community on an intensely personal level.

Always ahead of the times, Mick was one of the first in the Valley to grasp the value of the Internet. One of the original contributors to the WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link), a pioneering virtual community founded in 1985, he later collaborated with local educators and school districts to establish NapaNet, then a nonprofit dedicated to connecting local schools to the World Wide Web.

In the 1990s, Mick wrote what at one time was the only guidebook on the region, The Napa Valley Book, and developed its companion website, Napa Valley Online. The site was a comprehensive compendium of services that linked locals to everything from the best wineries and restaurants to real-time breaking news reports from public agencies. The site was a virtual information hub for all things Napa. For five years he worked in the computer department at The Doctors Company helping to establish their Internet presence.

A former staff writer for Wine Business Monthly, Mick also wrote regularly for Napa Valley Life magazine. In 2008 the magazine named him one of the valley’s most “intriguing” residents, citing his community work and groundbreaking websites: NapaNow.com (which succeeded NapaValley Online), SustainableNapaValley.org, and his online newspaper, the NapaValleyHerald.com.

Mick established his own publishing company, Westsong Publishing, and authored a number of books, including The Napa Valley Book, Cuba for the Misinformed, Peak Oil Prep, Sustainable Living, and Scan me: Everybody’s Guide to the Magical World of QR Codes. Visit mickwinter.com to learn more.

Mick was gifted with a quick wit, passionate intellectual curiosity and a lifelong and seemingly boundless thirst for knowledge. In his later years—decades after he had graduated from college—Mick earned a Masters degree in Creative Media, with distinction, from the University of Brighton in the United Kingdom.

At the urging of his thesis adviser at Brighton, Tara Brabazon, Mick applied to the PhD program in the School of Humanities and Creative Arts at Flinders University in Australia. Professor Brabazon had moved to Flinders and managed to bring her star student along with her. Flinders admitted Mick to its doctoral program, giving him a full scholarship.

Just days before his death, Mick submitted a complete draft of his PhD thesis, “Memes, Morphic Fields and Movie Lines,” which investigates—among other things—the way certain movie lines become memorable and integral parts of the culture.

In a Facebook post, Brabazon called both the thesis and its author “remarkable.” She continued: “It remains a testament to a great man, a great writer, a great human being.”

Mick was born in Palo Alto on Dec. 17, 1941. His father, Samuel William F. Winter, a native of Ireland, was a plant geneticist with Del Monte Foods who developed the “stringless” green bean. He died when Mick was 10.

After her husband’s death, Mick’s mother, Mary Armstrong Patten, a former music teacher, earned a degree in Library Science so she could support Mick and his younger sister Patty.

Mick attended the University of California, Santa Barbara, but dropped out after two years to join the Army. He served in Vietnam and Germany as a language specialist and intelligence officer.

He returned to UCSB after his military service and graduated with a degree in German.

He lived in Vancouver, British Columbia for 10 years, working as a screenwriter and advertising copywriter. While working on the film “Jeremiah Smith,” Mick was proud to have shared a trailer on the set with a grizzly named Willie, who (along with Robert Redford) was featured in the movie. Mick used to joke that although the animal didn’t snore, Willie did pace back and forth all night, making it difficult to sleep.

During his decade in Vancouver, Mick also became involved in the human potential movement, working as a trainer and teacher with the Arica spiritual school.

He left Vancouver to run the Arica office in San Francisco in 1979. He and his future wife fell in love during an initially routine telephone conversation and remained involved with the Arica community for decades. He and Kathryn Jacobs were married two years later, after moving to Yountville in 1981, where their daughter Joanna was born. Just before his death Mick said that of all his accomplishments, his greatest was his family.

Mick is survived by his wife Kathryn Jacobs Winter, daughter Joanna Kathleen Winter and her husband David Huffman, his sister Patricia F. Winter, cousin James Hall, his niece Marguerite Brydolf Jacobs and nephew Maxwell Robert Jacobs, his sister-in-law Carol Brydolf and her wife Anne Brydolf Langill.​A celebration of Mick’s life will take place Feb. 18. Contact kathryn@westsong.com for details.